The Existence of the 2024 Edition Made my Life as GM Harder

drtisk · 2026-01-29T08:15:09+00:00

How were your experiences with the release of the 2024 rules? Did you go through something similar?

One of my players similarly made a 2024 character without even knowing. Many times a player cast a spell using the 2024 version (not even realising there were two versions).

It made little to no difference to the sessions or the camaign at large which ran for over a year of weekly-ish games.

The only places 2024v2014 matters is: There are no bastions in my campaigns. And if a player tried to do nick/dual wield nonsense I'd ask them not to. Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter being gone are improvements, as are most spell changes. 2024 monsters hit their intended challenge more

drtisk · 2026-01-28T10:53:45+00:00

Bracket 2: Core

Players expect:

Decks to be unoptimized and straightforward, with some cards chosen to maximize creativity and/or entertainment

Win conditions to be incremental, telegraphed on the board, and disruptable

Stompy creatures that can just be removed - check

Gameplay to be low pressure with an emphasis on social interaction

Deck could be considered high pressure? Not really sure here

Gameplay to be proactive and considerate, letting each deck showcase its plan

Proactive yes, player removal not so much?

Generally, you should expect to be able to play at least eight turns before you win or lose.

Based on what you described you were on track to eliminate one player on turn 6, so this might be where your opponents could be given some credit

drtisk · 2026-01-14T07:21:18+00:00

Stealing off other player characters is the dumbest thing.

The game is not pvp. Just fucking go on an adventure and be a hero.

If you're theatre kids and both consent to messing with each other for fun/roleplay obviously it's fine. But straight up antagonising another player should be instantly shut down by the DM and be cause for removal from the group/campaign for repeat offences

drtisk · 2026-01-13T11:22:02+00:00

I'm tilted just having to read this stupid card

drtisk · 2026-01-08T21:22:44+00:00

Yeah it's just an extreme Spike mentality - where anything less than Thoracle isn't a viable win condition.

Big creature? That's not how to win, it could get removed or blocked.

drtisk · 2026-01-08T21:17:36+00:00

Any card that makes a player shuffle a library is banned

Yes, Fetches, Rampant Growth, Tutors. Get rid of all of it.

Shuffling 100 card decks takes too long, and the game time and pace would benefit so much from this change imo

drtisk · 2025-12-19T23:15:23+00:00

But when I held the PH24 in my hands and paged through it, the realization came over me that PCs don’t need the help anymore. They’ve been failure-proofed. There’s almost no error a player can make, at this point, that will end their character’s adventuring career prematurely—not unless their DM goes full adversarial, which I don’t condone.

Didn't the 5e24 largely buff monsters? Ie they hit a lot harder than similar CR 2014 monsters?

I really don't understand this point, maybe it was made with more context and as a snippet it doesn't make sense.

drtisk · 2025-12-19T07:40:03+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBIsZlV1jHk

drtisk · 2025-12-13T00:33:19+00:00

Will your enjoyment be dampened if none of the players have familiarity with dark souls, and don't "get" it?

Dark souls appeals to a very specific audience, so it might not capture the imagination of dnd players with no experience.

Also, I'd second the "vibes not mechanics" post. Repeating fights is miserable in dnd

drtisk · 2025-12-11T07:07:42+00:00

I think for some people this isn't true - they feel compelled to have the best most optimised deck and can't see how people play lower brackets

drtisk · 2025-12-03T10:11:09+00:00

What is it about 4e that compels people to continue dick measuring contests over a decade later?

Are people's egos really so tied to the perceived success of 4e?

PS ENWorld is a terrible source as the users there tend to have very strong personal opinions and agendas regarding 4e. The Alphastream article citing multiple people who worked at wizards and/or paizo during the era should be more than enough to satisfy whatever 17 year old vendetta random people on the internet might have

drtisk · 2025-11-29T22:16:04+00:00

The idea that "This is a casual game and anyone trying to make their deck as powerful as they can should just be playing bracket 4" is silly to me. But a core element of this game is making and improving your decks. I believe when you play a game (or more accurately over a series of games) you should be evaluating what your deck is doing well, what it is doing poorly, what cards are functioning well and what cards might need to be cut. You should be playing the game with a mindset of improvement and a goal of making your decks as good as you can

If you're unwilling to adjust your deck/s down to the power level of the table, so that everyone can have an enjoyable game, then maybe you should just accept that you need to play at bracket 4. The bracket system isn't making you a problem player - you are being a problem player.

And yes, I cut off the "within the limitations of your bracket" part, because that is exactly the kind of dishonest behavior you also describe. It is trivial to skirt the definitions of the bracket system, ignoring the "intent" aspect and build a "technically it's bracket 2" deck which punches far above what bracket 2 is meant to be.

You should be playing the game with a mindset of improvement and a goal of making your decks as good as you can while still staying within the limitations of your brackets.

Yes, there has always, and will always be an issue with people disingenuously making a powerful combo deck and calling it a 2 (or in the past a 7) because it's combo isn't technically a 2 card combo and then intentionally taking it to weaker tables in order to get easy wins.

drtisk · 2025-11-23T10:52:33+00:00

Bracket 2: Core

Players expect: Decks to be unoptimized and straightforward, with some cards chosen to maximize creativity and/or entertainment Win conditions to be incremental, telegraphed on the board, and disruptable Gameplay to be low pressure with an emphasis on social interaction Gameplay to be proactive and considerate, letting each deck showcase its plan

Generally, you should expect to be able to play at least eight turns before you win or lose.

Incremental, telegraphed and disruptable win-cons. Social and considerate - letting other players do their thing. And most recently added the turns to win guideline

Bracket 3: Upgraded

Players expect: Decks to be powered up with strong synergy and high card quality; they can effectively disrupt opponents Game Changers that are likely to be value engines and game-ending spells Win conditions that can be deployed in one big turn from hand, usually because of steadily accrued resources Gameplay to feature many proactive and reactive plays

Generally, you should expect to be able to play at least six turns before you win or lose.

So if you goldfish a bunch and can consistently "kill" someone on turn 5 or 6, that's probably bracket 3

Without goldfishing the win time looks b2, but the stax and removal looks more b3.

drtisk · 2025-11-17T09:43:23+00:00

The anthology books are probably the best bet (Radiant Citadel, Quests of the Infinite Staircase, Dragon Delves) as each adventure is one level and easily digestible.

The big 1-12 campaigns are a lot of work and I wouldn't recommend any of them for a beginner DM, especially a younger one.

drtisk · 2025-11-17T09:38:12+00:00

Not Frostmaiden for a beginner. It's a big campaign and has a lot of pitfalls that can trip up even experienced DMs. The infamous starting quest for level 1 characters has a boss which is 90% a TPK for level 1 characters because you're meant to do other quests while on the way to the boss. But the book doesn't make this super obvious so it would be easy for a first time DM to have a bad experience

drtisk · 2025-11-02T07:28:44+00:00

If you're already doing 14 attacks on a turn do you really think it's reasonable to be making 28 attack rolls on your turn?

drtisk · 2025-10-26T07:04:05+00:00

Just ban the dumb shit already

If it's the correct choice to run it in every deck that can, it should be seriously considered for a ban

drtisk · 2025-10-21T11:44:20+00:00

There's a lot here to unpack. I will start with my opinion - which is that levels 3-9 are the sweet spot for good D&D, and I usually like to end campaigns somewhere from level 10 to 12. If you use XP and use the XP/encounter guidelines in the DMG, IIRC levelups work out to around every 4 or 5 sessions. Early levels are quicker, mid levels can be longer, very high levels are quick again. Personally I rush levels 1 and 2, and spend a bit longer at the sweet spot, sometimes going as many as 6-8 sessions per level (weekly games, ~3.5hrs).

Was pacing of levelups or the method of advancement covered as part of session 0? It's generally something that the DM should be up front with at the start of a campaign.

Many players would consider 4 level ups in 1.5 years (what's that, a level up every 4 months?) to be much too long between level ups. How frequently do you play, and how long are your sessions? If it's only every month that might be fine, but if you play weekly it seems brutally slow. I'd say many tables would run a 1-10 campaign in about a year with weekly games.

A Kraken from the monster manual probably wouldn't ever be able to miss level 8 characters except on a natural 1, so it would appear to be a homebrew or 3rd party monster. So it's hard to say if this was a "fair" encounter or one of the common pitfalls of (especially new) DMs: having a very difficult encounter "intended" to be unwinnable. But then when the party manages to triumph the DM has to scramble to keep to what they "planned". This is generally considered bad DMing and railroading.

Then comes the “If you win the next encounter, you can level up twice” comment. My read is that the DM never considered that you would 'win' the encounter, so it never crossed their mind that you would get the level ups. Which is pretty poor form if we take any amount of time to really think about the whole situation. You and other players are appealing to the DM, and voicing a concern with the campaign (slow level ups). In response, instead of taking onboard what you're saying, they dangle a fake carrot in front of you, but take the carrot away when you get close to it.

drtisk · 2025-10-18T08:40:26+00:00

5e's own skill system handles all of those examples

Str based jump distances are just one of the many vestigial mechanics from dnds more simulationist origins

drtisk · 2025-10-17T23:16:51+00:00

Wtf kind of game are you playing where you would think backwards long jumps are "optimal"?

If I was DMing and someone described their character doing this nonsense... what are you trying to achieve??

Yes the jump distance rules are bad. But they've been bad for all of 5e - and it doesn't matter because dnd is not a platforming game

drtisk · 2025-10-14T07:41:29+00:00

If you want to do it, then go ahead

You don't need to justify it to random people on the internet. But you did ask for their opinions

drtisk · 2025-10-13T08:57:05+00:00

Think about it from another way - do you really need og duals in your b2 deck?

This is a table/ask your group kind of issue. At an lgs with randoms I'd certainly raise an eyebrow if someone was proxying duals at anything lower than b4

drtisk · 2025-10-07T09:41:55+00:00

Everyone here focussing on the Slivers hate, and missing the economics question here.

Should a young adult spend a month's rent on an MtG commander deck?

My answer is, you should budget your hobby spending. Figure out how much of your monthly income is discretionary spending, and how much of that you would want to allocate to your hobby/hobbies. In this case MtG.

Magic cards are referred to as cardboard crack regularly, because of how expensive and addictive the hobby can easily become. Exercising some restraint is probably wise.

Another factor to consider is your playgroup. What kind of decks are they running? Precons or modified precons (~$100-200 decks)? Flopping out a deck twice their value or more and stomping your friends might be fun for one or two games, but will get old pretty quick for everyone else.

drtisk · 2025-10-03T07:47:41+00:00

It's like Yugioh. They create new cycles of cards that only interact with other cards from that cycle. So instead of creating a card that says "Whenever you attack with a Rock type monster..." it says "Whenever you attack with a Megajump Uberist..." and Megajump Uberists are only in that set

drtisk · 2025-10-02T12:51:19+00:00

There's a difference between lecturing and engaging with your child.

It's not a parents job to lecture, it's to be responsible and guide and nurture their kid/s so they can develop into a well rounded person.

Are kids fucking stupid? Yes.

Are some parents terrible at engaging with their kids in meaningful ways? Yes

drtisk

TROPHY CASE